The End of the Beginning

I've included a few pictures of the apartment. It's not totally put together, but this gives a better idea.

We are finally, truly starting to settle in La Paz. We've been back for almost a month now, which has been great. The kids have their own beds, and we've put their rooms together and have some storage for their stuff and a wooden storage thing for the playroom. And we have couches and a dining room table and we bought a rug and a television (thanks to the family for that awesome gift) and everything feels like it's actually real.

Alexis has loved being back at school, and it was really cool to see her with her classmates at a birthday party last week and how much they enjoyed having her around. (I don't know what I'll do if I end up having a popular kid since I never was in the least.) She's been working a lot on writing her numbers so that they're neater. Maybe she can have better writing than her mother, and by better I mean at least somewhat legible. She gets up every morning and plays quietly in her room until the rest of the family is up, and she comes home from school every day very happy and excited. Except for one day, when she "broke" something on the bus and another kid threatened her with the office, which terrified her. Other than that, she still loves school and her teacher, and she loves seeing the other teachers outside of school, too.

Micah is his same euphoric, miserable self. Ecstatic one moment, writhing in agony the next. He is getting pretty good at counting, and we're still working on his colors. He has a number of them but still gets the basics confused a lot. He goes out with me a lot in the mornings and is getting more used to being without a stroller, although he still frequently wants to be held. He loves having the car shopping carts to himself when we go to the grocery store, though. His favorite new thing is Blue's Clues; he gets REALLY into answering the questions. His talking has just exploded recently, too. It kept feeling like he was going through growth spurts for a few months, but now it seems like he's going through talking spurts and is forming so many long, complete sentences now. It's always fascinating to listen to him bust out with a word I've never heard him use.

Everyone has been fighting colds on and off, but I'm hoping that we've all recovered for the most part. It has been rainy, rainy, rainy here, making it a bit difficult to get laundry to dry. We have an enclosed laundry area in our apartment, which is wonderful, but when it's wet, it takes longer. Plus I haven't been able to wash sheets because I can't find a sunny day for them to dry outside. I've loved the rain, though, and it's especially nice that if I have to go out, we're in a garage and there's a grocery store that has garage parking. If I need food, the rain isn't even a worry.

I still go to the market a few blocks away frequently, but I think I'm going to stop going as much for a few reasons. First, they're typically more expensive than the grocery stores. Two, I never know what I'm going to find or if they're going to have it. I went yesterday primarily looking for cherries but had about a dozen other things on the list and walked out with only two items purchased. I then proceeded to go to the grocery store. I wonder if the grocery stores are at some point going to put the markets out of business because the stores can buy in such bulk. (I imagine that's why most prices are lower, but I could be wrong about that.)

It's also CARNAVAL this long weekend, so my plan is to avoid going places where my children might be in danger of being pelted with water balloons. That's how they have fun here. I can just imagine Micah's reaction to that, and I'd rather keep that in my imagination instead of my reality.

Christmas with the Edgertons (.ie. The Murphy's Law Homecoming)

It's currently January 6, and I am sitting at my grandmother's dining room table, watching my son eat toast that isn't falling apart (like it would in La Paz) and listening to Alexis watch Sesame Street. Why yes, we are still in Virginia. What, you ask, happened to this trip home? Allow me to elaborate on our journey. (The story of woe comes first. Regular news comes later...)

We woke up about 3:00 am on Tuesday morning, December 6 to begin our 22 hour trip back to Virginia. The kids were wonderful. This included a number of challenges. The first of which was our layover in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. We flew about an hour and had to get off the plane there. The problem, though, was that our ticket said 9:30 for the next flight. When we ordered the tickets and checked on times, it said something like 9:00. We went through security and looked for gate number four, where we were supposed to be. We found gate four, but the problem was that this gate was BEFORE going through customs, and there was no obvious (or even hidden) way to get back to gate four. When we attempted to ask someone, we got the blank stare reactions, which translates into " Why are you asking me such a logical question? Are you an idiot?" We proceeded through customs, hoping to find a way back to our gate, ate some breakfast, and checked our flight time. The board said 11:30 on time, which made no sense to us because it shouldn't have been on time according to our other information. We tried to ask someone. There was no one to ask. 9:30 came and went without our flight being called. We gathered the children up, starting to fear that we would miss this flight somehow, and began to gather around other gates. We basically jumped on anyone in any sort of uniform to ask them where to go. We walked back and forth between two gates multiple times because people told us to go different places. We were finally informed that we should wait in the waiting area (where in the world was that?) to start boarding. We watched other passengers gather in confusion and frustration until finally people started to set up ome table for yet another security checkpoint so that we could go through behind customs back to our gate. We pointlessly asked someone why there wasn't a sign informing people of this information, since this obviously happened every day. We received the blank stare of idiocy (our idiocy apaprently, not theirs). We finally walked down the hall to see hanging signs for gate three, gate five, but where was gate four? There was a sign for gate nine? We looked up and found the sign on the wall that actually said gate four instead of gate nine. We receieved a shoulder shrug of explanation. We boarded and prepared ourselves for eleven hours on a plane with two awake kids.

And the kids truly were great. This is wonderful because I can have some confidence that they're going to be pretty good on our overnight flight back to La Paz on January 20. Jason's not coming with us because he is going to Ecuador first.

The 20th, you ask? Wait! Let me do some counting! Does this mean that you have been in the states for already over four weeks? And that you'll have been in the US for about seven weeks?

Why yes, yes it does.

The day after we got here, we mailed off our passports and forms to get our visas, which arrived before Christmas. We were all good on that side of things. However, about a week after we got here, we were informed that back in Bolivia the offices that dealt with our paperwork were not going to process any of these applications between December 20 and January 23. This affects us because after we got our new visas here, we have 30 days once we land in Bolivia to complete the process. You need at least 15 days for this completion. We had always planned on leaving a few days after Christmas, but if we did this, we wouldn't have enough time to get our visas, and Jason's traveling to Ecuador made things a little more difficult, too. All of this to say that we ended up being here a lot longer than anticipated.

Alex will miss a total of three weeks of school, which really stinks, but she's excited about going back. We couldn't have done this without our familes. They've been putting us up, feeding us, helping us take care of kids, etc. The kids are doing a really great job overall, but you can tell when the constant moving becomes taxing. We were just at my parents' house for over a week, and you could tell that they were starting to settle in because they were calmer and not as out of sorts. It started to feel stable. And while I'm not necessarily a person who needs routine or stability, this has been a really long time of not having a stable life for the kids. We have literally been living out of suitcases since the end of September, when we began selling stuff in our old house. They need a regular life, and we're really looking forward to getting back to La Paz to provide that. While there will still be a ton of stuff to do in our new apartment (which we've only lived in for three days), it's ours, and that means something. And they'll have beds. And their toys. It will be nice.

Ultimately, though, it's probably better that we're here anyway. For a few reasons. 1. Our stuff still isn't there. It was held up because of labor strikes and other reasons, and now it's apparently in customs because there is medicine in a few of the boxes that they have to check. Hopefully it will be sitting in our apartment when we arrive there in two weeks. 2. We still don't have our furniture. I think that everyone selling us stuff forgot that they were taking off two weeks for Christmas or something, because it all should have been there by now. But it's not, so right now all I'm really hoping is that it's there by the time we get there.

Enough of our tale of misfortune, though. In reality, it's not exactly a tale of misfortune. After all, we got a free trip home, right? And how often do people make a huge move like this and get the chance to buy stuff back here only a few months after moving? And we have purchased a lot of stuff. My entire family doubts my packing prowess, though. However, I just "officially" did a trial packing, and have 1 1/2 empty carry-ons after it's all said and done, which was great. (Maybe I'll bring back some Trader Joe's pumpkin pancake mix... :) The real packing problem has been having enough hard shell cases for things we have. We have these large, soft duffel bags to use for a lot of things, but quite a bit of stuff can't go into something like that. Anyway, we have space for everything we bought and all our toys. AND when we got here last night, I knew I had left a coat, but I also discovered that I had apparently left another huge bag. (I had thought I brought four of those bags because they're easily packable if I didn't use them, but it wasn't at my parents' house.) SO MORE STUFF!!!! That sounds weird. What it means is that I can probably try to get them some more clothes for the kids to grow into and a few things I wanted to bring back but wasn't sure about (like mixing bowls) can go. Maybe even some of my old tupperware, which would be nice. Regardless, we still have quite a bit of space.

Christmas we great. The kids got a ton of stuff, but people were very cognizant of the fact that we had to take it all back. Alex got two Disney princess Barbies, Squinkies, My Little Ponies, and a bunch of other things. Micah was all about cars and trucks and tractors this Christmas, and he got ultra-excited anytime he saw anything with Cars or Mickey Mouse. One of his favorite things, though were his Hexbugs, these tiny little battery-powered "bugs" that skitter around different habitats that you can build. He adores them. And he loves this plane we got him that he flies around and makes the "mouth" chomp people while he flies it through the air and makes noises. We spent two nights in a hotel around Christmas Eve, which was actually really nice (especially because one of our nights ended up being free, but I'll explain that later), and took the kids to Jason's parents' house in their pajamas that morning to open their presents from us, which was lots of fun. Jason got me a gift certificate to a store in La Paz that I've fallen in love with, speakers for my laptop, and a new coat! And people gave us money to contribute to us being able to buy a television, which was really, really great because they're very expensive in Bolivia.

Speaking of money issues, this has actually been really funny while we've been here. On the bad side of things, we've had to shell out some money for our car, which hasn't sold yet. We'll have to spend a few hundred dollars because our power window regulator has fallen apart, so that still needs to be fixed, and we had to pay to renew out registration. However, we've had three "interesting" situations:
1. My new coat. To make a very long story short, there was a hole in the coat that I got that was going to require a seamstress to take off the collar and redo it so that it would be truly repaired. After a LOT of time, half a dozen trips to the store, a lot of misinformation from Target, and no other coats in two states, Target gave the money back for the alterations. However, instead of refunding the amount for the alterations, they refunded the other amount, meaning that we we charged about three dollars for the coat. When we finally realized this and called the store, we were told after everything we've been through "don't worry about it" by the manager. So we didn't. FREE COAT!
2. We bought two Phineas and Ferb movies for the kids to give each other for Christmas. But they weren't movies; they were just episodes, which wasn't described at amazon. Anyway, when I contacted amazon to ask if they could change the description, they just gave us our money back. (They did the same thing for another small item. Amazon is awesome!) FREE PHINEAS AND FERB!
3. The first night in the hotel we barely slept. It was really warm that night, and we needed the ac. However, when the ac turned on, it rattled so loudly that we woke up every time and didn't sleep until we turned it off. Not a comfortable evening. When we told the hotel and filled out a survey, they were really apologetic about it and refunded the cost of the room for one night. Country Inns and Suites. FREE ROOM!
Oh, and there's actually another one. Kind of:
4. Yesterday afternoon I got an email from my property management company stating that my hot water heater had stopped working and had to be replaced to the tune of $975. They took care of working it out, which is part of what they're paid to do. However, he didn't say anything about my home warranty, which kind of concerned me. When I called to ask him about this, he said he didn't see one on record. When he went back to check, they had all of our information about it, but it had not been put into their computers. When he called the warranty company, they said that if we had gotten preapproval that I would have paid the $55 deductible and they would have paid the rest. Without batting an eye (although I'm sure with a ton of frustration on his part), he said that we would be responsible for the deductible and they would pay the balance. Which means we're not out a thousand bucks like we were afraid of for a few hours. FREE REPAIRS! (Okay, not really, but we have a home warranty for a reason...)

In the midst of all of this, it's nice that when things go wrong, it seems like a number of people have been very customer service oriented, which is very nice.

On to other topics. Very briefly, because this is way too long. I chopped off a ton of Micah's hair yesterday, so he looks so much older now. I did it a little too short, but you have to try and see what works sometimes, right? He's still a cutie, but he looks like a little boy now instead of a toddler. We have been playing tons of games (which I have been promptly losing). We got Qwirkle for Christmas, and Jason and I found the 5-6 player expansion AND Barbarians and Traders for Settlers of Catan for half price (score! - yes, I'm a huge dork when it comes to games). The kids have also started taking showers sometimes, and by this I mean that I take the sprayer off and squirt it on them while they scream with laughter. Lots of fun. Jason had a two-week break during Christmas, but he's back working now, so he leaves most days to find a Panera or Starbucks or some place with wireless so that he can do his job. I started working on Tuesday; I'll be working two hours on Mondays and two on Tuesdays, which is a good amount of time but not too much. And one hour each day is a flexible time, so I can work it whenever I want to. And Alex has learned to cross her eyes and snap.

And I am not tired of typing. :)

Moving Day

We moved in last night, and as of this afternoon (Saturday), everyone actually has a pillow. That's a new thing. (We were using ones from the SP house.) I took two loads over to the apartment yesterday, some SP guys got the big stuff, and our new place is great.

And now it's Monday. We actually have most things put away, if not officially organized. It was enough so that I could actually vacuum the floors. We spent a ton of Saturday morning cleaning up, and then we spent quite a bit of time trying to do some more shopping for the apartment to get things like trash cans, converters, and an ironing board. (We finally found a decent one at a reasonable price at one of the neighborhood markets.) There are a number of markets here, but the one in our new neighborhood, Achumani, has prices that are way too high. That's where I tried to buy a bunch of stuff the other week and they tried to rip me off, so I walked away. However, another market in Irpavi seems to be a decent place to go. I found a small household stand with an honest woman who gave me decent prices, so I think I have found my market stall, even if I have to drive a little way to get there.

Shopping at the market isn't always cheaper, though. Part of me wonders if the buying power of supermarkets is going to end up driving markets out of business at some point. I can frequently find things in the supermarket for less than the market. Additionally, everyone tells me (and I have found from my experience) that as soon as they hear my speak they are going to hike up prices or not give me the best deal. When things are a simple, set price in the grocery store, there's no real reason for me not to shop there. The only exception will probably be fruits and vegetables, but otherwise I'll probably just shop at Ketal or Hypermaxi unless I go to the one woman in Irpavi.

We should get our furniture while we are gone, which has its benefits. As of right now all we have is a bed (the kids are sleeping on the floor) and a plastic table we're eating on. It works for a few days, but it will be great for the kisd to have beds, to have a few side tables, a real dining table, and a couch finally! What's going to be interesting is the color of the couch. I looked at the receipt over the weekend, and the color said chocolate. I ordered more of a stone brown color, MUCH lighter. We tried calling yesterday but no one answered, and things are so crazy today we don't think we can check on it, so the color might be a surprise. We'll see. I like the idea of the dark brown; I'm just afraid that it will end up showing fuzzies and stains. But then so will the lighter color; it all just depends on what gets on the couch, right?

The kids really like the apartment and are going to love their rooms I think, which are pretty large. Micah was taking a nap on Saturday while Alex and I were gone, and apparently Jason poked his head in the door and watched Micah very sneakily put on his monkey boots, very carefully pull the covers over him, and go to sleep. We have the pictures for proof!

No more for now. Today is insane because we have to get up at 3:00 in the morning tomorrow in order to be at the airport at 4:30. And we have a short flight with a short layover, and then we have an eleven. Hour. Flight. With small kids. I'm not quite sure what we're going to do for entertainment, but we'll work it out. We're almost there!

DING DING DING We have a winner!

On the family side of things, my son is apparently a HUGE flirt. I had to take him with me to the school today to turn in some forms, and on the way out there was a group of girls in a circle (probably 2nd or 3rd grade) who saw Micah. They immediately asked if he was Alexis’ brother (so apparently people know Alex already) and started to say how cute he was. My son then proceeded to walk up to the circle of females and give each one of them a kiss. They all instantly fell in love, and my son is going to be dangerous… lol.

On the administrative side of things, drum roll, please…

We have a place to live.

HOORAY!

I really couldn’t have asked for a better place. Here are the details:
- 20 minute walk to the office for Jason (and that’s a little farther because when he measured it, he went by his favorite coffee shop)
- 4th floor, so it has a view, but there’s an ELEVATOR!
- very, very, very safe (along with everything else, it’s next door to the Belgian embassy)
- on a quiet block that is close to everything but also quiet; a small park with playgrounds on each side of the block
- electric gate (I don’t have to get in and out to open the gate whenever I go anywhere) and an extra storage space, too
- huge kitchen with lots of counter space and (hopefully) a place for a small table
- place for washing laundry and hanging it up, attached to maid’s quarters (small room with bathroom)
- large living/dining area
- huge master bedroom with walk-in closet and full bath, also space for office in there (oh, and did I mention that both bathtubs are Jacuzzi tubs? that is apparently a big thing here)
- two smaller rooms for the kids (one doesn’t have a closet, but we’ll use it as a bedroom), and they're not actually small; they're bigger than the kids' roooms at home
- another full bath in hall (although with a hugely awkward toilet that you can barely sit on because the shower is two inches from the front)
- huge other room with walk-in closet and full bath – we’ll use as a play room, for the kids main bathroom, and as a guest room when needed (this currently has navy blue teddy bear wallpaper in the entire room, but we can strip that and paint it for about $100)
- carpet in all the bedrooms
- already has overhead lighting everywhere and neutral curtains (this is actually really important because that saves us money to spend on other things that we need, including a range hood, which is probably going to cost us about $300 – crazy, huh?)

Overall, this place is everything we could ask for, and we think we’re going to be really happy here and won’t feel cramped or like we’ll need to move after a year. It’s been a little bit of a difficult month living in transition, but we should begin our lease on Dec. 1, and we think that we might be able to start moving some things next Monday (and possibly as early as Saturday; we’ll see about that.) It’s a great price for the location, and we’re all very happy. We just went to take another look at it and take some measurements, and both of the kids seemed very happy about moving there.

So city won. Kind of. It’s like a little oasis in the middle of the city.

Things will start moving very quickly now. Because SP takes care of a lot of things, things are slightly more difficult. (This isn’t anything bad; it just means that buying things for the home will take a bit longer.) However, tomorrow morning we’re going to go look at furniture and probably place a very large order. We are most likely going to buy most things at a place that makes very cool, simple wooden furniture. I was there on Saturday and like all the stuff, so almost all of the furniture except the couch will probably come from there. Hopefully Jason will be able to go with us for that, but we’ll see. In the afternoon I’ll probably head into downtown La Paz to get some household things like basic kitchen supplies, possibly a few nightstand lights, etc. We’ll also need to buy a refrigerator and oven because those don’t come with rentals here. (And of course, the range hood. Sadness due to it being so much money.) However, we’re going to get a gas stove (hooray) and might actually be able to take the refrigerator that’s in the house we’re currently living in. (We already have a washing machine.) Things are going to start being a lot busier around here, but that’s great because it means that we’re actually going to be in a place of our own, which will be wonderful.

Pictures

Alexis' first progress report.

This might be the most disturbing assignment ever for a four-year-old. The frogs look way too friendly.


Micah has a need to close ALL doors. He doesn't like the fact that some of them don't stay closed here.

They got new chairs and LOVE them!

These will be my downfall. About a dollar for this box of bite-sized pastries. This is bad news for me.

Random Updates

1. I just heard my son count to five in Spanish while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Maybe we'll get cable after all...

2. I made homemade tomoto sauce yesterday. I didn't have the ingredients I really wanted, but I tomatoes, oil, and onion powder. For only those three, it turned out really, really good. I guess it's kind of Italian style: fairly chunky and you're supposed to just coat the noodles in it. I think I'm going to make more today with better ingredients.

3. I saw a house the other day that could be really great for us. It's farther away than we wanted, but it looks like there's publich transportaion nearby and a place to park our car. The drawbacks (other than distance): spiral staircase, which I worry about with the kids, at least one kid would be on a different floor from us (this would make going to the bathroom in the middle of the night a little weird for Alex because she'd have to go up a flight of stairs if she was on a different floor), and it's actually pretty big, probably bigger than we need, making cleaning a potential challenge. (I'm still hoping for a maid, but the bigger the house, the more expensive that becomes.) Part of me is still really hoping that we can get that one apartment within walking distance. It would be so great in so many ways...

4. Alexis got her first progress report the other day and did EXCELLENTLY. I was so proud. She got goods in all of her "extras" like gym, etc., except for in art, where she got an excellent! And all of her "academic" stuff was perfect. I'll take a picture and post it if I get it back today.

5. Have I mentioned that I feel like my entire face has broken out during this process? I shouldn't have to battle zits and wrinkles and the same time; it's really not fair. On the flip side, though, my hair looks A-MA-ZING in this country. Low humidity I guess.

The Eternal Quest?

Okay, so maybe that's me speaking a bit hyperbolically, but what can I say? It feels like we've been househunting for a long, long, long time. In reality, we've only been here a little over two weeks, and we didn't even see our first apartments until a few days after we arrived. It really hasn't been that long. I think we're just a bit disappointed in the dearth of options near the office where Jason is working. We'd really love for him to be able to walk to work, but we're not quite sure if that's going to happen.

There are two opposing viewpoints here. ONE: LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY!!! Okay, so we could live in the middle of the south zone of the city, which has a neighborhood called San Miguel, whichis right next to Calacoto, where the office is. The benefit is that we would be close to everything. We could walk out of an apartment building and go a block to our favorite ice cream place, walk to get saltenas (my new favorite food - a slightly sweet, baked pastry dough filled with chicken or beef, potatoes, veggies, and spices), and basically have close access to everything. However, it would be like living in the middle of a city, constantly noisy, and we don't know if that would get old. On the flip side, we could live in the burbs, have less access to transportation (possibly having to take Jason to work every day or give him the car), and live in a tranquil setting, possibly with a view, and maybe even a house with a bit of green space. Oh, the dilemna. Oh wait: there's not much of a dilemna because there's NOTHING FOR US TO SEE! (We've had a few showings cancel on us.)

In reality, we have a good place to stay until we find where we want to move, and we can be here as long as we'd like to be, which takes the stress away. However, we're all ready to find a home, but we don't want to just move into something that's not going to good for us and we'll have to move out of a year later. So city or country? VOTE NOW!!!! (Not that we'll take into account your votes, but vote anyway!)

Micah is finally over his cold. He went on antibiotics to get rid of a cough, which was the only symptom of his cold. The cough wouldn't go away, so we spent 18 bucks on medicine. (Yikes, right?) The pricing thing is interesting here. TO give you a rundown of a few grocery store prices:

1 liter milk: $.90
1 pounf of chicken or beef: $3
1 box of Cheerios: $4
1 box of about a dozen small pastries of various types from Ketal, a grocery store here: $1 (These will be my downfall. They're bad, I tell you. BAD! But oh so good...)
six kiwis: $1 (this is at the grocery store; they're apparently a lot cheaper in the market, which I haven't been to yet)
1 saltena: $.65 (Now I want to go get these for lunch.)

Groceries aren't really cheaper for the most part, except for fruits and veggies. Some things are more expensive and we'll still buy sometimes (like CHeerios for the kids - I haven't found a generic version yet), but other things we'll give up completely. (I don't think I'll be buying any Nutella here.) Part of the experience though, right? One of the things that always cracks me up is when I'll see an import of something, like beverage sweetener, that in the states I woudl buy at the dollar store and here costs about four bucks. Always interesting, right?

Now let's review some of the differences:

1. I can take out my trash any day of the week. All I do is put in in a bag and take it to the curb outside of my house. How awesome is that?

2. There are no driving rules here. I mean, I know there ARE some rules, but there aren't many as far as I can tell. If you try to take a left turn, be prepared for cars to pull up on your left and your right and take the turn before you if you're not aggressive enough. I'm working on my agressive behavior. Honestly. Take THAT, PUNK DRIVERS! I'LL PASS YOU IF YOU'RE GOING SLOW!

3. They have this thing called your NIT, which took me a while to figure out. Whenever you buy something, you're supposed to either give your NIT number, which is your tax id number, or save your receipt. This is because sales tax isn't added, and the citizen is supposed to keep an account of all purchases so that they can pay the government the appropriate sales tax. I wonder how many people actually do this...

4. Milk comes in bags, just like in Managua. You can buy it in a box, but it's more expensive. It seems like I am constantly opening up bags of milk due to the two rugrats I have at home.

5. The dogs. The stupid, stupid dogs in our current neighborhood. I promise you it sounds like the beginning of a West Side Story rumble outside of our window at two in the morning. Maybe we can move somewhere without so many dogs that want to join gangs and disturb the peace of slumbering humans.

6. The playgrounds. When I asked Alexis what her favorite part of Bolivia was, she said school, and then she said playgrounds. Because almost everywhere you go out to eat, there's a playground. It's very nice for the adults.

7. The bathtubs. I know this isn't an across the board kind of thing, but every place that we've looked at (and some have been nice and some not so nice) had jacuzzi tubs in the bathrooms. Our hotel had it. Our current house has them. I never expected this to be a norm here considering Jason didn't even know if we were going to get a regular bathtub.

8. There's no sandwich bread. Not that there's any lunch meat or peanut butter anyway, but the sandwich bread that's available is all really tough. I have found some rolls that we're using for sandwiches and cooked a bunch of chicken and sliced it thinly for sandwiches, and I found some reasonable cheese. Put that on a roll with some avacado, and WALA! You have a sandwich.

Those are some of my observations thus far.

Jason is on his first trip to see one of the SP project locations. He'll be back tomorrow. While there's a lot involved (he is the "boss" after all), he's really enjoying his job so far, and the people are great. I'm trying to put myself out there with my Spanish and simply with trying to get stuff done, but I feel a bit in limbo until we get a home. The good news, though, is that there have been no problems with me working for Smarthinking while I've been here, so I can still continue with them. I'll have to figure out next semester's schedule soon, but it seems like it will still be a good fit. Especially if I can get Alex to always take an afternoon nap after school. (You're getting very sleepy, Alexis. You want to take a nap.)